


Raze

by deathwailart



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Renegade Commander Shepard, Ruthless (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1963041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asteria Shepard, survivor of Mindoir, stands in the ruins of Torfan and laughs.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: raze</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raze

Torfan is burning and Asteria Shepard laughs.  
  
The air is thick enough it's penetrated through whatever is left of her filters. Smoke hangs in the air, black and greasy and even the rubble is slick to the touch as she leans back, takes a breath. Torfan is burning and it's justice.  
  
She chokes. Removes her helmet, shakes her head and drags a hand through her sweat matted hair, not caring for the tangles or the strands she rips out when the finger joints of the gauntlets snag. She swallows and chokes again, coughing so hard her eyes sting although that could just be the smoke and sweat anyway. Torfan is burning and she's coughing and choking like she did on Mindoir but she's laughing, the giddy punch of adrenaline and endorphins flooding her veins. There are bodies piled high. Soldiers – batarians aren't soldiers, they're terrorists and pirates and slavers – and civilians – but again, they're terrorists and pirates and slavers – lie in bloodied heaps. Riddled with bullets. Human too, whoever else betrayed their own kind to join up with batarians.  
  
She remembers seeing one of them melt when a member of her squad picked up one of their flamethrowers. Saw him bubble and hiss. That's how her father died. They burned him alive in front of her as her mother held her tight, whispering don't look don't look don't look over and over until she was screaming for Asteria to run, to not look back. But she did and they slit her mother's throat.  
  
She throws up.  
  
One of her squad approaches as she's spitting and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, one of the few that are still alive, she pushed them hard because she had to, there was a job to do, they had to wipe them out, had to send a message. Humanity will not stand for this. Humanity will not allow their colonies to be ravaged and slaughtered. Each singularity, every shockwave, every bullet, all for humanity, all for Mindoir, for her mother and father, her neighbours, her friends, each and every person killed or sold into slavery, this was for them. Justice. Retribution.  
  
"Shepard," the woman greets and she looks ill, ashen and shell-shocked. "Major Kyle wants to talk to you. Full status report." She shifts her weight, looking ready to faint and Asteria can't blame her – she feels the same herself now, cold despite the armour, despite the fires, sweat cooling on her skin. She needs to eat, it's always the same when she's been using her biotics the way she has lately. When they fall one by one.  
  
Not one by one.  
  
She heard someone say meat-grinder when she was screaming at them to move their asses or they'd be left behind, to focus on the mission and to do their goddamn jobs. Yeah, she lost three quarters of her squad but they completed the mission and wiped each and every one of those damned bastards out – this is retaliation, the Major said that, everyone in Alliance brass said that. For the Skyllian Blitz. That was the speech she gave before she led them into battle; we're doing this for our brothers and sisters, for everyone we've lost to a damned batarian and pirate out there just for daring to carve out our spot in the galaxy. For her it was Mindoir.  
  
Some of them get it, the ones she'd call comrades. The ones that don't, the ones _crying_? Useless. Better off with the dead.  
  
"Shepard?" The other soldier repeats and Asteria takes a breath, swallows and nods.  
  
Torfan is burning and they've won. This is victory and justice as the world swims in a haze of smoke, bile scorching her nose and throat.


End file.
